The US Department of Transportation says it forced six airlines to refund passengers $622million for canceled or delayed flights and web site fined them $7.25million not doing so within the time frame required by US law.
The recent action against Frontier, Air India, TAP Portugal, Aeromexico, El Al Israel Airlines and Avianca is part of ongoing work to ensure Americans receive refunds they are owed by airlines, the DOT said on Monday.
The department told DailyMail.com that the full $622million in refunds has already been paid out to consumers and that its actions 'induced' airlines to 'pay those refunds faster'.
Frontier Airlines was required to pay $222million in refunds and will pay a $2.2 million penalty
When the pandemic began the Frontier policy was to treat any flight more than three hours late as 'significantly delayed' but they changed the definition to avoid refunding consumers properly, the DOT claimed
In addition to the refunds, mass fines have been issued in the wake of delays and cancelations that affected flights during the pandemic and had many travelers wait months or even years for refunds - or not paid at all.